Sunday, November 24, 2013

Roger Best was an English violinist, violist,
and teacher born (in Liverpool) on September 28, 1936. I think he is only the sixth violist I have
posts on – the others are Alessandro Rolla, Paul Hindemith, Emanuel Vardi,
William Primrose, and Walter Trampler.
Every one of them began on violin and later switched to the viola. Of course, there are many concert violinists
who also play viola, even as soloists, but never relinquish violin for viola –
Pinchas Zukerman, Maxim Vengerov, Nigel Kennedy, and Wolfgang Mozart are among
them. Best also played other
instruments, as did Stephane Grappelli and a few other violinists, but mostly to
make a living while he was a student. He
began his violin studies with his father but soon began to study with a
professional teacher. At age 11, he won
a scholarship to the Liverpool Institute.
He later won a scholarship to study at the Royal Manchester College of Music
– his teacher was Paul Cropper - earning a living touring all over England with
various orchestras as well. Later on, none
other than John Barbirolli invited Best to play in the Halle Orchestra, based
in Manchester, England. After two years
there, Best joined the Northern Sinfonia as Principal violist. The orchestra was based in Newcastle, about 300
miles north of London. Although he
sporadically concertized as a soloist, he eventually (by 1972) gravitated toward
orchestral playing, performing as a chamber player and studio musician. He ended up playing in dozens of recordings,
though anonymously, as most orchestral players do. Beginning in 1977, Best was also the violist
of the Alberni Quartet but only for a time.
The Alberni has had at least four different violists. Best was the third in the series. Among others, Richard Bennett and Malcolm
Arnold wrote viola concertos for Best - Best premiered the Arnold concerto in September,
1971 and recorded it later on. The
Bennett concerto he actually premiered in New York in 1973. Best later taught at the Royal College of
Music, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Royal Scottish Academy. He played an Antonio Mariani viola
constructed in 1645, give or take. The
instrument had previously been played by Lionel Tertis. Best died on October 8, 2013, at age 77. There is a quote in his obituary which I
like: “He also played croquet at
national championships level – a game that suited his temperament well,
combining as it does courtesy with a killer instinct.”

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Andrew Sords is an
American violinist and teacher born (in Newark, Delaware) on June 4, 1985. As do violinists Hilary Hahn and Joshua Bell,
Sords writes a blog to keep his wide audience informed about things related to
his career; he also writes about his unique view of many other things as
well. I will say that his website is
worth visiting for the blog alone although you will see so much more. His repertoire includes two of my favorite
and (unfortunately) seldom-played concertos – Bruch’s second concerto in d
minor and the Schumann concerto. In
fact, I think the time will come when every concert violinist will take on both
of these neglected concertos and perform them as regularly as the Brahms and
Tchaikovsky. Incidentally, the Schumann
concerto was in danger of never surfacing thanks to a low opinion of it given
to Clara Schumann (Robert Schumann’s widow) by none other than Joseph
Joachim. Sords has a very active solo
concert and chamber music career which has taken him all over the globe. He has given concerts with over 100 (different)
orchestras, including the well-known major ones, and played the most important
venues in every continent. That may well
be a record for any violinist but even those numbers, of course, will continue
to increase. Sords began to study violin
privately at about age 6. His first
teacher was Liza Grossman. However, his
first instrumental studies were actually on piano, which he still plays. He thus joins a number of concert violinists who have been quite proficient as pianists - Fritz Kreisler, Louis Persinger, Jascha Heifetz, Arthur Grumiaux, Andor Toth, Arabella Steinbacher, and Julia Fischer just to name a few. Sords later studied at the Cleveland Institute
of Music and Southern Methodist University.
His main teachers were Linda Cerone (pupil of Ivan Galamian), David
Russell, and Chee-Yun (Kim Chee Yun – pupil of Dorothy DeLay.) As do violinists Maxim Vengerov and Tai
Murray, Sords enjoys and has a deep appreciation for dancing and has even
participated in the famous “Dancing With The Stars” show for a charity benefit. He was the first classical artist to do
so. That may seem unusual but French
violinist Jean-Marie LeClair was actually a professional dancer, choreographer,
and violinist in the early 1700s. Sords
is also unique in that he plays a modern violin constructed in 1912 by Belgian
violin maker Augustine Talisse, a violin maker I had never heard of until
now. Albert Markov, Tai Murray,
Christian Tetzlaff, Giora Schmidt, Judith Ingolfsson, Pip Clarke, Ilya Kaler,
and Alina Pogostkina are among the growing number of concert violinists who are
gravitating to modern instruments which, as you may know from reading this
blog, I also favor. Sords’ performances
are typically characterized by music critics as being “utterly radiant.” You can see his Facebook page here. His most recent audio release is the New Age
music CD with composer Sean Christopher.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Tor Aulin was a Swedish
violinist, conductor, and composer born (in Saltsjobaden) on September 10,
1866. I have never heard any of his
music but it is said to have traces of the influence of Grieg and Schumann
which is to say that it sounds nice. Here is a YouTube file of his second violin concerto - the one in a minor. Scant information is available about him on the internet so I do not
know at what age he began his violin studies.
From 1877 to 1883, Aulin studied at the Stockholm Conservatory of music
aka the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.
He then studied an additional two years with violin virtuoso Emile
Sauret in Berlin, at the Berlin Conservatory (probably the Stern Academy) from
1884 to 1886. He also studied
composition and conducting with Philipp Scharwenka in Berlin though I’m
guessing not at the same school since Scharwenka had a private conservatory of
his own. In 1887, Aulin founded the
Aulin Quartet, the first professional string quartet in Sweden. He was 21 years old. From 1889 to 1892, Aulin was concertmaster of
the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. He
spent some time conducting the symphony orchestras in Stockholm and Gothenburg
as well – it is very likely that Sweden had no full-time orchestras prior to
1900. I do not know if he was permanent
director with any Stockholm orchestra but he did have a post with the
Gothenburg Symphony from 1909 to 1912.
The Aulin Quartet was disbanded in 1912.
He championed the works of his fellow countrymen, Franz Berwald and
Wilhelm Stenhammar and premiered some of Stenhammar’s violin works. Aulin composed a number of works for
orchestra – including three violin concertos – and numerous works for chamber
groups and solo instruments, including works for violin and piano. A YouTube file of his third violin concerto (in c minor - dedicated to Henri Marteau - published in 1904 and now in the public domain) can be found here. I do not know if it has ever been heard (in a live performance) outside Sweden. Recordings of some of Aulin's violin (with orchestra) works can be found here. He also wrote cadenzas for at least two of Mozart's violin concertos. Aulin died on March 1, 1914, at age 47 - the
First World War had not yet begun. Today, at least outside of Sweden, Aulin remains a very obscure musician.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Bronislaw Gimpel was a
Polish violinist, conductor, and teacher born (in Lviv, Ukraine) on January 29,
1911. Although he was a very active and
successful artist for many years, today, Gimpel is almost totally
forgotten. Perhaps fame is fleeting
after all unless you can tie it to something transcendental. Corelli and Vivaldi had their concertos;
Tartini had his Devil’s Trill Sonata; Paganini had his caprices; Kreutzer had
his Beethoven Sonata; Clement had his Beethoven concerto: Rode had his
Caprices; Joachim had Brahms; Auer had his students; Flesch had his scale book;
Mischakoff had Toscanini; Stern had his Carnegie Hall; Briselli had his Barber
concerto; any number of famous violinists had their original concertos or
recital pieces to be remembered by – Viotti, Spohr, DeBeriot, Wieniawski,
Vieuxtemps, Conus, Sarasate, Kroll, Bazzini, Achron, Kreisler – Huberman had
his Israel Philharmonic; Heifetz, Kogan, Rabin, Kaufman, and Ricci had their
fabulous techniques and recordings, and so on and so forth. Alma Rose’, a very ordinary violinist, became the conductor of an infamous orchestra in a concentration camp (where she also died) so we shall know her name forever. Josef Hassid had a one-and-a half-year career
(between the ages of 16 and 17), but he became mentally ill, was in an asylum
for seven years, underwent a lobotomy, and died at age 26, so his name will
live on. Tie yourself to something that
will live beyond your lifetime and perhaps you’ll be remembered past your own
generation – if that means anything to you.
Gimpel began to study violin with his father at age 5. He entered the Lviv Conservatory at age
8. His main teacher there was Moritz
Wolfstahl, someone about whom I do not know anything. Gimpel made his debut playing Mendelssohn’s
concerto at that same age. The concert
was a complete triumph for the young child.
At age 11, he traveled to Vienna to study with Robert Pollack (aka
Robert Pollak, one of Isaac Stern’s teachers) at the Vienna Conservatory. His brother (Jakob, the piano player) was
already there. At age 14 (1925), he
soloed with the Vienna Philharmonic playing Karl Goldmark’s concerto. Some critics compared him to Bronislaw
Huberman, another child prodigy. From
age 15 until about age 19, he concertized in Italy, Europe, and South
America. In Italy, he got to play for
royalty and the Pope. Then he went to Berlin
for further study at the Advanced School for Music. His teacher there was Carl Flesch. I don’t know how long he studied with Flesch
but in 1937, Gimpel came to the U.S. At
the invitation of Otto Klemperer, he served as concertmaster of the Los Angeles
Philharmonic. He also conducted the
philharmonic from time to time and was very active in the musical life of the
city. In 1942, he enlisted in the Army
and after the war, he resumed his solo career.
He was 34 years old. From 1942 to
1950, he served as concertmaster, conductor, and soloist of the ABC Radio Symphony
in New York. He then formed the
Mannes-Gimpel-Silva Piano trio and enjoyed outstanding success with that
ensemble. In 1956, he relocated to
Europe. It has been said that he gave
over 100 concerts in a single year in Germany alone. He was playing concerts in Russia as
well. He formed the Warsaw Quintet in
1963 and played with that group until about 1967. In that year, he returned to the U.S. and taught
at the University of Connecticut from 1967 to 1973. In Connecticut, he founded the New England
String Quartet. From 1973, he taught at
the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England. All the while, he continued to concertize,
which is pretty much standard practice for all conservatory violin teachers or
professors. Gimpel was a member of
various chamber music ensembles throughout his career, not just the ones already
mentioned. In 1978, he returned to the
U.S. once again. It is not well-known
that toward the end of his life, he instructed three youth symphonies in Caracas,
Venezuela. He also had a pilot’s
license. In his last public performance
– at the time, of course, he didn’t know it would be his last – he played the
Tchaikovsky concerto and he later said it was one of the very best performances
of his career. He was 68 years old. He made numerous recordings which can easily
be found on the internet – a few are posted on YouTube. He played a 1730 Santo Serafin violin and a
J.B. Vuillaume constructed in 1845. The
Santo Serafin is now owned by a first violinist in the San Francisco Symphony –
Mariko Smiley. I don’t know where the
Vuillaume is. It has been said of
Bronislaw Huberman that he died in his sleep and it’s been said of Gimpel as
well, who died, in Los Angeles, on May 1, 1979, at age 68.